Dead Of Winter
by BasementOfTheMansion
Summary: “Valentine’s Day is ruining the color pink for me.” Kelly/Toby... fluff? Well, as fluffy as I ever get, anyway.
1. Let's just leave this place

**Title:** Dead Of Winter  
**Disclaimer:** Tch, yeah. As if. Toby and Kelly would have LINES if I owned the show.  
**A/N:** A bit of shameless V-Day fluff for my favorite UC couple. Because who deserves it more? This was written and posted at nearly lightning speed for me, so apologies for any mistakes.

* * *

"I think Valentine's Day was invented just to torture single people," Kelly sighed dramatically, leaning on the thin divider that walled in her desk. It was actually the thirteenth, but everyone was celebrating the holiday on the last workday before it hit.

"Probably," Toby droned, not especially wanting to join her pity party but finding himself in a similar funk. He'd had to walk past Pam and Phyllis this morning as well.

"I mean, it's the dead of winter, so it's not like it's there to celebrate love or anything. It's just to make lonely people feel more cold and lonely because the whole world sucks."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Valentine's Day is ruining the color pink for me," she announced with gravitas.

Toby bit his lower lip to keep his expression serious.

"You know what else sucks? Today is Ryan's and my third anniversary," she continued dismally.

"I'm sorry," he offered.

"Me, too. Sorry I wasted so much time on that slimeball."

"You said you were going to start dating again. How's that going?" he asked suddenly, knowing all to well where _that_ road led.

"Ugh, it's all..." She waved an arm in disgust, attempting to convey the frustration and misery words could not encompass. "And I'm getting _old!_ Nobody's ever going to want to marry me!"

"You're not old," he said patiently. He used to get annoyed with Kelly's tendency to hyperbole and random subject change, but over the years, it had become a simple, almost soothing routine to offer the calm counterpoints and simple reassurances she was digging for.

"I am," she protested weakly. "I'm going to be thirty next year. That's ancient. Ugh, let's so not talk about this right now. It's too depressing. What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Are you dating anyone?"

He gave her an odd look. "...No."

"Why not?"

He shrugged, feeling ambushed.

"Seriously. You've had some hot girlfriends in the past. It's not like you're a bad-looking guy or anything. So?"

He shrugged again, grimacing. "Dating is..." He imitated her earlier gesture in a much more sedate, Tobyish manner.

She nodded sagely. "We're just both unlucky in love, I guess."

"Guess so."

"Maybe we should just date each other," she said with a giggle, turning back to her desk.

He looked up sharply, but she was already gone.

Surely, that was just a joke. Logic dictated that it was just a joke. She was laughing when she said it, so it was a joke. It had to be.

So why was he suddenly so off-balance?

No, just a joke. He was just way too lonely and the holiday was making him paranoid.

Kelly was lonely, too, and likable and approachable and idiosyncratically sweet to him, if occasionally a bit trying.

He stood up, gripping the edge of the divider apprehensively. "Hey, Kelly?"

"Huh?"

"Uh... heh... When lunch rolls around, do you want to... get out of here? Go somewhere so we don't have to... be here?"

She instantly lit up with the brightest, happiest, most grateful smile a woman had given him in he didn't even know when. "Oh my God, you have no idea how awesome that would be!"

He felt his lips splitting open into a grin all of their own accord, wide and relieved and unexpected and... awesome. "Okay, then. Um, around twelve?"

"Sounds cool."

"Alright." He sank back down to his seat, still smiling. Gotta love Valentine's Day.

* * *

_This fic is dedicated to my partner-in-crime Steph, to hopefully cheer her up. You know I wrote that Paul grin in just for you! Well, for both of us, really._


	2. Go to Summerland

_And the one-shot becomes a two-shot, again thanks to Steph. Just so you all know, this was written before I realized there was going to be a 2009 Valentine's Day episode, so I fully expect the show to joss this like it's hot. So, without further ado, we rejoin our heroes at lunch..._

* * *

Kelly picked at her BLT. The diner was crowded around the little booth they shared, the hum of lunch rush hanging in the air. "You know the worst part? I really want, like, a box of chocolate or something, but I can't just go out and buy one. It's like, beyond pathetic, buying yourself chocolate on Valentine's Day."

"All the chocolate goes on sale on the fifteenth," Toby pointed out. "You could still get some, and it would just be smart shopping."

Kelly considered this, her inner bargain hunter trumping her self-pity. "God, that is so true. I'm totally gonna do that. Thanks for the idea! Actually, thanks for making this day not suck, period."

"Oh. No problem." He stirred his iced tea with the straw, wondering what to say next on this impromptu little non-date. Kelly, the never-ending fountain of conversation, went back to picking at her sandwich in silence, eating one ingredient at a time.

"So--" he began at the exact moment Kelly looked up and started in with "Anyway--"

They both stopped and looked at each other, laughing awkwardly. "You go," Toby offered.

"No, that's okay. You go."

"I... didn't really have anything to say. I was just filling space."

"Oh... Well, I was just going to say how I kind of want to just skip work for the rest of the day. I mean, I wouldn't," she added conscientiously, "But now that we're out of there, I don't want to go back. Not today. You know what I mean?"

"Yes," he said empathetically, like she'd just been preaching gospel.

"Yeah, but I don't wanna use up my days or anything. But I just want to leave sometimes and never go back. Like, go and drive until I'm somewhere warm and forget about stupid Pennsylvania and its million year winter."

Toby nodded dreamily, a distant light in his eyes, and it was only then that Kelly remembered exactly who she was talking to; i.e. the guy who'd actually done something to that extent, for reals, and had pictures to prove it.

It was a rare feeling for her to know that she was talking to someone who knew exactly what she meant. She suddenly really wanted to go, had her car packed and her mix CDs playing as she zoomed down the highway in her mind. She'd bet he'd go with her if she asked. She could ask, right now, and maybe that little spark in his eyes wouldn't die the second they pulled back into the Scranton Business Park.

But there were a million little reasons she couldn't actually go, her job and her life and everything that was safe and comfortable.

"I can't wait for my vacation," she invented suddenly, "I'm gonna go somewhere warm. With a beach."

"When are you going?" he asked, tone back to normal.

She shrugged. "I dunno. I hope soon. I really need a break. You look like you need one, too."

He nodded absently, conceding the point.

She wasn't going to rule out asking him, because maybe she'd like to see that spark again and they both needed a break, but that would be in the future, if at all.

"This is a pretty nice place," she said, looking around. "Do you come here much?"

"Sometimes."

"It's cool. I've never been here. Know any other cool places?"

As for right now... Maybe she'd just see if she could make this lunch thing happen again.

* * *

_It's done. For reals this time. Don't try to pester me into some kind of series. I get performance anxiety._


End file.
